religious zeal the missionaries seemed to overlook the childish imperfections of the Indian's mind and tried to give him theological doctrines that were beyond his comprehension, the, while presenting him with a system of Christian ethics which they were openly violating by taking to themselves his choicest lands, let it pass. The day of scientific ethnology had not come, and the proper way to civilize aboriginal man was not yet comprehended. With all their shortcomings, we well may honor these devoted servants of Christ who, braving every privation and danger that they might spread the gospel of salvation as they understood it, to the Indians, brought hither the Christian home and the school, and became no inconsiderable factors in wresting this fair and bounteous region from the hands of a giant monopoly.
"It is in evidence that about 1839 the Catholics made their presence felt among the, Indians and the few Canadian settlers in the territory. The mystic rites of the Catholic service specially appealed to the Indian; and the priests, by the simplicity of their lives and by evidencing no disposition to take possession of the country for the benefit of white settlers, easily ingratiated themselves with the Indians, thereby arousing the hostility of the missionaries, and thus there was injected into the early settlement of the territory somewhat of the religious strife between Catholics and Protestants which for centuries has been the disgrace of Christendom. The incidents of this strife need not detain us further than to remark that the Indians for whose spiritual good both parties were ostensibly striving, were more or less demoralized by the un-Christian conduct of their teachers; and if in some instances they showed preference for the Catholics, it must be considered that the Catholics were not appropriating their lands.
"During this period neither the people nor the government of the United States were ignorant of, or idle in regard to, their interests in the Oregon territory. The report of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the diplomatic correspondence with England, the report of Commodore Wilkes, who visited the territory in 1840, on his return from Japan; the quite elaborate report of T. J. Farnham, who made extensive explorations in the, territory in 1840 in behalf of proposed immigration from Illinois, the discussions in Congress and the letters of the missionaries, all had made known the exceeding richness of the territory and had aroused a widespread interest in it; and it was only waiting for the government to establish its authority in the territory by some understanding or treaty with
